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Last night before the launch of Halo The Master Chief Collection Xbox and 343 Industries shared a treat with fans of the Halo franchise. During Halofest 343 industries showed off Halo The Master Chief Collection, Halo: Night Fall and Halo 5: Guardians.

Starting off with the Halo: Master Chief Collection trailer Xbox Live’s Major Nelson first directs us to the eSports arena for highlights from the Invitational. We get to see as great teams show their stuff as well as show off the Master Chief Collection. Believe the Hype and Str8 Rippin made their ways past incredible teams to end up in the finals and a final victor emerged, Believe The Hype.

After the eSports display, Dan Ayoub and Frank O’Connor from 343 Industries talk about the release of Halo: The Master Chief Collection and how they have seen the game change over the years and how much Halo 2 has changed from it’s original release to now, ten years later. They describe the MCC as a “love letter to halo fans” and they hope that the fans will enjoy it for all it’s worth.

A first look at Halo 5: Guardians was then showing off such things as the thruster pack, The ground pound, the clamber, a slide, a charge attack, the returning ability to sprint and the smart scope. New features are that while sprinting your shield won’t charge and the smart scope isn’t aiming down sights but an addition to your HUD that allows for more precise fire.

The beta for Halo 5: Guardians will show off the arena style gameplay while also serving as a test to balance the game. Freddie Wong, from RocketJump, asked two of the developers their thoughts on what ability would be nerfed first and the thruster pack or ground pound were offered as suggestions jokingly.

343 employees discuss their method for play testing and balancing the Halo 5 beta by having a team of professional gamers rigorously test the game. They were less happy to discuss how they fared against the professional team, some gameplay shows that there’s probably a good reason they didn’t want to talk about it. The Halo 5 beta will release on the 29th of December and have 7 maps, 3 game modes and available for 3 weeks.

OpTic then face off against Str8 in Halo 5: Guardians multiplayer. It is a 4v4 arena match on a brand new level showing off some new items such as the legendary sword called the Prophets Bane, the smart scope and the clamber mechanic. Halo 5: Guardians beta will also be the first halo game to have a basic implementation of a spectator mode in Halo.

The first episode of the Ridley Scott directed mini-series, Halo: Nightfall, was then shown to the general public. The episode lasted around half an hour and was the first in our introduction to agent Locke who will play an important role in Halo 5: Guardians. A new episode of Nightfall will be released every week and there will be five different episodes, these can be viewed on the Halo Channel on Xbox One and Windows 8.

What do you think of Halofest? Was it all you expected or did you want to know more?

Keep your eyes peeled to TechRaptor for a preview of the Halo Channel and a review of Halo: The Master Chief Collection which is now available for Xbox One.

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I have been playing all kinds of games for as long as I can remember with a particular interest in action adventure and platforming titles. While I am primarily an Xbox gamer I also spend a fair bit of time on the PS4 and on my PC in VR.